Behaviour‐Based and Outcome‐Based Control Systems: A Meta‐Analytic Study

Sales control systems are instruments used by firms to improve performance and other organizational outcomes. To understand their antecedents and consequences, this paper conducts a meta‐analysis based on 104 studies. The results showed significant relationships between behaviour‐ and outcome‐based control systems and the complexity of the products, bonuses, financial performance, sales innovation, organizational support and satisfaction with supervisors. The outcomes revealed that behaviour‐based control systems were the most effective mechanism in turbulent markets and for determining financial performance. However, outcome‐based control systems were the most efficient instrument for complex products.     

The "New" Stability and Growth Pact: More Flexible,Less Stupid?

The doubts and criticisms with regard to the fiscal discipline imposed by the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) have been many and varied, and the SGP was revised as a result. The following paper evaluates the changes contained in the "new" SGP by considering the properties for ideal fiscal rules put forward by Kopits and Symansky. The analysis points towards a clear increase in flexibility together with the probable emergence of new enforcement problems. In this context, the need for new improvements within the European framework for the definition and implementation of national fiscal policies is discussed.     

The nonobserved economy in the European Union

To better understand the share of the nonobserved economy (NOE) in the European Union, especially on the PIIGS, we estimate, through the multiple indicators multiple causes model, the path between 1980 and 2013. The model includes (i) the tax burden (disaggregated into direct and indirect taxes), a proxy of regulation burden, the unemployment rate and self-employment as causes of the NOE economy; (ii) the GDP and the labour force participation ratio as indicators of the NOE economy. In particular, the estimated weight of NOE as a percentage of official GDP was always higher in the PIIGS group.     

Scientific policy and free riders

This paper presents econometric evidence of the effects of knowledge capital and institutions on technology transfer funding. A model is proposed and fitted for 31 research units on agricultural, forestry, and food sciences in Catalonia, Spain from 1990 to 1996. We find a strong impact of knowledge capital and institutional variables on technology transfer funding. Considering administrative costs strengthens the main points of the model and in some cases greatly changes the results. In particular, we reject the hypothesis that administrative costs do not matter. We also find evidence of the existence of free-rider strategies and that increasing returns-to-scale economies exist when bidding for technology transfer funding.An earlier draft of this paper was completed while the author was a visiting scholar at Iowa State University. The author is grateful to Wallace Huffman, Todd Sandler, and Simon Vicary for comments. Financial support was provided by the Interministerial Commission for Science and Technology project, SEC96-2300, and the Interdepartmental Commission for Research and Technological Innovation project, SGR97-333.     

Economic growth and budgetary components: a panel assessment for the EU

In this article, we test to determine whether a reallocation of government budgetary components can enhance long-term GDP growth in a set of 15 EU countries. We apply panel data techniques to the period 1971–2006, and use three alternative dependent variables in a growth regression: economic growth, total factor productivity and labour productivity. Our results also identify the distortions induced by public expenditure in the private factors allocation. In particular, we detect a strong crowding-in effect associated to public investment, which has enhanced economic growth by boosting private investment. We also associate a dependence of productivity on public expenditure on social security.     

In Defense of DEFECT

The one-state machine that always defects is the only evolutionarily stable strategy in the machine game that is derived from the prisoners' dilemma, when preferences are lexicographic in complexity. This machine is the only stochastically stable strategy of the machine game when players are restricted to choosing machines with a uniformly bounded complexity. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: C70, C72.     

INTERNATIONAL LISTINGS, THE SECURITY MARKET LINE AND CAPITAL MARKET INTEGRATION: THE CASE OF US LISTINGS ON THE LONDON STOCK EXCHANGE

This paper examines for international capital market segmentation by testing for changes (both inter-temporally and inter-beta) in the parameters of the riskreturn pricing relationship caused by the listing of US stocks on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) between 1965 and 1987. It is hypothesized that international listings reduce the negative effects associated with barriers to international investments, help integrate world markets and therefore decrease internationally listed stock's required returns. Significant negative deviations from the Sharpe-Lintner (SL) pre-listing pricing relationship during the postlisting period are therefore expected, primarily caused by decreases in the intercept parameter. We find, in support of the hypothesis, significant negative deviations from the predictions of SL for our sample, although they do not appear to have an intertemporal dimension. These deviations are largely associated both with decreases in the value of the SL model's intercept parameter and with low beta firms, and point toward some integration benefits from US listings on the LSE.     

Resource allocation, equality of access and health

Based upon the experience of Tanzania, this paper relates resource allocation in the health sector to the output of health, by contrasting access to and utilization of available health services by urban and rural populations. The writer argues that increased health expenditures alone cannot yield an efficient health care return unless the additional expenditure is spread ‘thinly’, in keeping with the realities of population distribution, transport possibilities, and disease patterns in most poor countries. Detailed data are presented for recurrent and capital expenditures for health facilities at different levels, and the output of those institutions is considered in terms of the volume of services offered. Those services are then measured according to their utilization by urban and rural populations. Because referral systems are found to function only marginally, it is argued that further building of large hospitals is not justified in the present situation of most poor countries. Specifically, the writer describes the ways in which Tanzania is changing its inefficient and unjust health care system. The paper concludes that the major obstacles to change are not shortages of resources or technologic ignorance but social systems that do not place high value upon the health care needs of rural peasants. It is in this way that the professional and elitist interests of the few are often destructive of the needs of the many.